Aspie spends his birthday by himself cuz has no IRL friends?

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Actually lioness and demoluca just talked about their friends and parties.
Plus, I'm a girl, and AS girls tend to be better at socializing than AS guys for some reason.
Please do not question my diagnosis. And do not think that because I have a few select friends I have not been generally shunned by the outside world.

Agreed! And I sure have been shunned by the outside world as well... but I still have some friends and very glad for that. In fact when I was in college I had a lot of friends, more than I do now. But if I had time to hang out with others I would do it more. When you have kids and other major responsibilities you just plain don't feel like socializing a lot anyway.

Ditto!

I HATE partys and big social situations. I'd much rather spend my birthday by myself or with a sig other. Any more for me would be too much.

Yeah, for a lot of us it just means we make friends later age than normal, or get weird/autistic/eccentric/etc friends, or even false friends (bullies who act like our friends so they can do mean things to us and we'll still come back for more, or to take advantage of something we have that they want). A lot of us have talked about our experiences with friendship, and our difficulties with it, and all these different things, in a lot more detail than on this thread.

I find it kind of ironic the OP questioning people's diagnoses for having friends, and yet getting utterly creeped out and disbelieving at the fact that some autistic people have troubles that he doesn't have. We're all different, we all have different areas of ability that are more affected than others, or else different situations. (And as far as the research seems to show, whatever cognitive differences exist, exist in social and non-social situations alike, so social problems are at most an outgrowth of underlying cognitive differences (and the differences between two people, as well), not a central cognitive attribute even though it's an important one.)

I happen to have friends who don't mind that I have trouble initiating contact with them, or might even forget they exist for long periods. In a different environment, people would never put up with that, so I'm lucky that way. I didn't suddenly become cured the moment I started having real friends.

You asked somebody if they were sure they're an aspie. I'm really wondering if you are. In fact, I started wondering when I read your post on how LFAs creep you out. You seem to attach an awful lot of importance to what other people think and do. I still want to know what's so important about having a "normal NT birthday party," and what does it have to do with being respected or having fun (in your own way)? Your general attitude is pretty darned NT, frankly.

A lot of autistic people internalize societal attitudes, even societal attitudes about what abilities go with (or are prerequisites for) what other abilities.

My brother for instance is autistic and has trouble understanding my pattern of abilities and difficulties, because he has thoroughly learned what a typical pattern is and that that is the norm everything else ought to be based on. For a long time (not sure if true now) if he looked at an autistic person he saw in them what most people would see and nothing more or less. This was because of the same thing. And he's definitely autistic.

Bashing birthdays

For the past 35 years I have celebrated my kids' birthdays. My oldest decided against family get togethers when she was 14, and did her own thing with friends. She expected gifts, though!

My son stopped the birthday thing and just went out with his friends at thirteen, to a movie. I still got him birthday presents.

My youngest had a party for a few friends last year. She might want one more party, but she says she is getting too old now. (She will be 14 next month.) She still likes her friends around and might do the movie thing. And, yes, she likes gifts!!

As for me, my mother stopped the birthday thing when I turned ten. I think it was because my birthday was on Halloween so I could go out and have fun. She did not like having to do anything because she was tired. As it was, this was a blessing as she used to call the parents to beg them to send their kids over. I was hesitant to accept gifts from forced efforts. This has always made me feel uncomfortable.

I used to never celebrate birthday parties, until three years ago. I had made reciprocal friends for the first time. One of my two close friends decided do something on my birthday. One of the things we did on the day was to go to St Georges Park to see the ducks as I like ducks. I don't have parties as such, I just spend time with them maybe go to the park or something. The weird thing is she could celebrate her birthday that year because she was self conscious bout being the centre of attention. I said the year after we will celebrate and not to worry. She did and enjoyed it. So we have bee to two of hers, three of my other friend and three of my own. Last birthday my other friend got me a book on wildfowl aka ducks

Does your friend even want to have a birthday party on his birthday? Did he express that he does?

I had a birthday party when I was 11 and that was the only one. It was ok I guess but I have never really wanted another one. I especially hate the idea of surprise parties. I even try to keep people from knowing when my birthday and when it is my birthday I don't tell people. I hate the whole idea of gift exchanges. My friend used to always send me gifts, even when I asked her not to something would always show up. This meant I would have to reciprocate when her birthday came around, and teenage girls are hard to shop for (I was a teenager at the time as well). I don't even want gifts from my parents. They will bug me until I finally think of something inexpensive that I could use and they will give me that and more stuff or give me a much more expensive version of what I asked for. I understand that it is something that I have to do and I like giving gifts people like but I really don't like having to receive them. If there is something I want and can afford it then I get it myself, if I can't afford something then I have no business having it at all.

If this guy is you maybe you are out of luck. If this guy is someone else you can help him have a party. You both can plan and call people and arrange everything, just the two of you, then give his parents the bill, 'k? Here's an idea for a home business for all you entrepeneurs. It's called "Rent-A-Party". You hire a bunch of people to show up at a party, kind of like catering only with guests instead of food. That's how you "cater" a party with people. Good luck with this, my friend

I think I've enjoyed maybe two of my birthdays since age 8. The rest of my birthdays weren't nice and I didn't enjoy them, so I stopped celebrating my birthday a few years ago. I just don't see the point. I had few people to invite, so usually just my immediate family showed up out of obligation and barely said a word to me the whole time they were there. I always felt awkward, because I've never been good at social gatherings. On top of that usually something went wrong and I usually had a meltdown after the party.

Since I stopped inviting people to my birthday nobody remembers my birthday in the first place. I don't usually do anything special on my birthday anymore, maybe just eat something nice. That's all.